http://www.garynull.com/Documents/Vaccines/vaccines-2ndopinion_excerpt.htm

Note: The information in this document is presented for informational purposes only.  It is not intended as a substitute for diagnosis and treatment by a qualified professional.

Introduction

For more than a hundred years, two basic assumptions have been put forth by public health officials. One is that vaccines are safe. The second is that vaccines are effective for the conditions for which they’re given. The public and our legislators have, by and large, accepted these assumptions as true, and as a result it is now compulsory in many states that children have as many as 33 inoculations before entering school, with some of these given as early as the first few weeks of life.

We’ve been told that the end of smallpox, polio, and measles as serious health threats is due to mass inoculation programs, and again we have accepted the official dogma unquestioningly. But as we shall see here, this is not exactly the truth. What’s more, a disturbing reality that has generally been unrecognized is the ever-growing number of individuals suffering adverse reactions to vaccinations. These individuals are predominantly infants and children, and the problems they’ve incurred as a result of vaccination go way beyond sore arms and transitory fever: Such conditions as autism, attention deficit disorder, minimal brain dysfunction, and other biochemical and neurological abnormalities have been linked to the effects of vaccines. Most tragically, so has SIDS—sudden infant death syndrome. Yet because of underreporting of these troubling statistical links, a full picture of the effects of vaccination has not emerged. And the problem of underreporting is a deep-seated one, because not only are the news media not playing up what has already been learned, but doctors are not being encouraged to report possible adverse reactions, slowing additional learning. Couple these problems with the official line that for the greater good of the majority a small minority must accept negative consequences, and you have a situation in which nobody is really looking for the truth.

This investigation is an attempt to do that. It has required nearly five years of in-depth analysis, and a review of thousands of articles. I am not personally taking positions on individual vaccines, but I am, rather, presenting information based upon hard science; hundreds of references are included here for those who want to read further. For people challenging mandatory vaccination policies, the reference section will be particularly helpful, as it will be for anyone who simply wants to look beyond the official line and see what’s actually happening. It is interesting to note that the situation with vaccination is analogous to that with chemotherapy; both are presented to the public as efficacious and safe when in reality, with a few exceptions for each, they are neither. In both cases, then, personal decision-making requires extensive research.—Gary Null.

Why We Assume Vaccines are Safe and Effective

We are repeatedly told that vaccines are safe, vital to our well-being, and necessary for the prevention of many diseases. Most of us take it for granted that not being vaccinated endangers our health and safety. In a worst-case scenario, we envision world-wide plagues and even extinction. Our faith in vaccinations is so strong that we think of them as panaceas, and look to science to develop new ones for every known affliction, from the common cold to AIDS. Here we take a close look at our assumptions and ask, are we seeing the full picture?

* Jamie Murphy, author of What Every Parent Should Know About Immunization explains society’s general acceptance of vaccinations as due, in large part, to state laws that dictate children must receive vaccines before they can attend school. Murphy elaborates on the history of these requirements: "Right now, all 50 states have vaccination statutes that require immunization before a child is allowed to attend school. But it wasn’t always that way. In 1905, to give an example, only 11 states had compulsory laws. In other states it was optional. And in the early 1920s, there were four states--Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Arizona--that had explicit statutory provisions against compulsory vaccination. Over the years, unfortunately, all of the states have made vaccinations compulsory."

Murphy feels that one of the major mistakes that was made--and that is repeatedly made--is that the politicians, who were greatly encouraged by the lobbyists from the drug companies, were convinced, without proper investigation, that vaccines were the only way of preventing disease. This, Murphy says, "gives credence to an idea that has dominated medical practice for this entire century."

Barbara Loe Fisher, cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), in Vienna, Virginia, reminds us that people tend to trust that the law is in their best interest. Those who feel otherwise are given a difficult time.

"Part of the problem is that in 1905 a Supreme Court decision, Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, set the stage for what we’re experiencing right now in this country, and that is that many people don’t feel they have the option to say no. Parents who do are being charged with child medical neglect and child abuse. The Clinton administration has now linked entitlement programs to vaccination status, which means that a poor family dependent upon federal assistance will not get food money, medical care, and other entitlements if they cannot show proof that their children have gotten every single one of their ten required vaccines."

Why We Should Question Our Assumptions

Vaccines should not be taken on faith alone. Rather, we need to take an objective look at their risks and benefits, as well as at their record of effectiveness. Vital points to consider about vaccines are the safety issues involved, how vaccines work, the questionable science behind vaccination, the natural evolution of disease, vaccine propaganda, and vaccine ingredients and manufacturing processes.

Safety Issues

Significant adverse effects have been reported with every type of vaccine. These reactions can occur soon after vaccination (short-term reactions) or several months to years later (long-term). Delayed reactions are more insidious and less obviously linked to vaccination, and thus necessitate large-scale epidemiological studies to be proven. They can result in permanent conditions such as epilepsy, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and immune system dysfunction.

Short-Term Reactions.
Results of research conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) have shown that evidence indicates a causal relation between: hepatitis B vaccine and anaphylaxis; measles vaccine and thrombocytopenia, death resulting from anaphylaxis, and death from measles vaccine-strain viral infection; measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thrombocytopenia, and anaphylaxis; rubella vaccine and acute and chronic arthritis in adult women; diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, and pertussis vaccine (DTP) and acute and chronic encephalopathy, hypotonic-hyporesponsive episodes, and anaphylaxis; the pertussis component of DTP vaccine and extended periods of inconsolable crying or screaming; tetanus-toxoid-containing vaccines and Guillain-Barre syndrome, brachial neuritis, and possible risk of death resulting from anaphylaxis; oral polio vaccine and Guillain-Barre syndrome, and death from polio vaccine-strain viral infection; and unconjugated HiB vaccine and susceptibility to HiB disease.

The committee could not find enough evidence to indicate either the presence or absence of a causal relation between: DTP vaccine and aseptic meningitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, hemolytic anemia, juvenile diabetes, learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorder, peripheral mononeuropathy, or thrombocytopenia; and rubella vaccine and radiculoneuritis and other neuropathies or thrombocytopenic purpura.

One would think that before injecting children worldwide with hundreds of million of doses of vaccine there would be enough clinical trials performed to determine exactly what the effects of this large-scale human genetic experiment would be. Lack of funding is not the problem. Each year, more than $1 billion is appropriated by Congress to federal health agencies to develop, purchase, and promote the mass use of vaccines in the U.S.; the problem is that none of that money is used to fund independent vaccine researchers to investigate vaccine-related health problems. In itself, the lack of studies on possible short- and long-term effects of vaccines should raise questions in any honest investigator.

In the meantime, between 1991 and 1994, 38,787 adverse events were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Of these, 45 percent occurred on the day of vaccination, 20 percent on the following day, and 93 percent within two weeks of vaccination. Deaths were most prevalent in children 1 to 3 months old. Since, as has been amply documented, only one tenth of vaccine-induced reactions are reported to the VAERS, this number vastly underestimates the real incidence of vaccine-associated complications. Furthermore, because a link cannot be proven when the adverse event occurs long after the time of vaccination, this reporting system is giving a very limited perception of the real extent of the problem.

Long-Term Reactions. The list of adverse events that have been linked to vaccination, is, unfortunately, much longer than the one presented by the IOM, partially because, as we’ve said, long-term causality is hard to prove. There are, though, hundreds of reports documenting cases of meningitis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, autism, chronic encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis, among other conditions, that seem to be linked to vaccines. They will be discussed throughout this document.

Why We Need the Right to Choose. Most of us assume that vaccinations are completely safe, even harmless. Alan Phillips, the founding director of Citizens for Health Care and Freedom, a North Carolina nonprofit corporation dedicated to raising awareness of vaccine issues and supporting the right to choose, believes otherwise.

Says Phillips, "I have seen information to directly contradict all of the commonly held assumptions about the safety and efficacy of vaccinations. The primary one that concerns me is the assumption that vaccines are completely safe. Most medical people, if you press them on this issue, will say that nothing is completely safe. But pediatricians almost universally will imply or state outright that they are."

"Physicians in this country are required to give a piece of paper that alludes to the possibility of some sort of problem with vaccines. But the way information is given is ambiguous. It makes some reference to maybe a one in a million chance of a child dying. That’s what was on the paper that my son’s pediatrician gave to my wife when we took him in for his first two-month checkup immunization. At that point, we were completely unaware of the issue, and, quoting him directly, the pediatrician stated outright: ‘That never happens.’ I remember that clearly in reference to the possibility that maybe one in a million children will die."

"The fact is that in this country over a hundred deaths are reported each year following vaccination." And, Phillips continues, "the FDA admits that 90 percent or more of serious vaccine adverse events are not even reported, and independent sources raise that figure to as much as 95 or 97 percent. So any pediatrician or other person who says that this doesn’t happen is uninformed."

In addition to vaccine-induced deaths, there is the potential for any number of serious side effects. Meryl Dorey, editor of the Australian publication Vaccination: The Choice is Yours, and president of the Australian Vaccination Network, reports that "for one 39-month period ending in November 1994, there were 32,000 serious adverse effects reported. If we accept this 10-percent figure from the FDA, that would mean that there could be 320,000 children being seriously injured by vaccines. It’s unacceptable for any drug or treatment to be killing and injuring people at such a high rate. There should be alarms going off. There should be people asking more questions."

By the way, apparently not everyone accepts the FDA numbers. One vaccine manufacturer, Connaught Laboratories, estimates a 50-fold under-reporting of adverse events!

Dr. Harris Coulter, an expert on the pertussis vaccine, is co-author of DPT: A Shot in the Dark and author of Vaccinations, Social Violence, and Criminality. Coulter says that while vaccines are described as safe, safety is a relative term that the government cannot clearly define. "They say that the vaccine is safe because only one in x number of hundreds of thousands of children gets a violent reaction. The number changes from time to time. Sometimes it’s one in 100,000, sometimes one in 300,000, and sometimes one in 500,000 vaccinated children. You can question if that really means safe. For the child who is damaged, that is not safe at all."

Coulter brings up another important issue concerning safety: There are a variety of degrees of damage that can result from vaccines, and we shouldn’t be concerned only with the most extreme. As he explains, "in any group of people who are exposed to a stress factor--and a vaccine would have to be called a stress factor--the reactions to that stress will vary from nothing at all to a very serious reaction, maybe even death. What the scientists who are concerned with vaccinations tend to leave out of consideration are the people in the middle. One in 100,000 is very seriously affected; they get cerebral palsy or mental retardation or maybe they die. We know that all those things happen. But what about the ones in the middle? There’s a whole spectrum of varying reactions to vaccinations. And that is a factor which is simply not examined at all by the people concerned."

Coulter makes the vital point that concerns about vaccine safety and efficacy are well-documented in major peer-reviewed journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet. "All that information is there if you just take the trouble to look for it." And Dr. Dean Black, author of Immunizations: Compulsion or Choice, points out that government discussions of vaccine risks are recorded in the Congressional Record, in a text concerning compensation to families of children who have been harmed by the procedure.

Black tells us that "Congressman Henry Waxman, who chaired the hearing, is quoted as saying, ‘A properly manufactured vaccine that has been properly administered can cause a terrible adverse reaction, an admitted scientific fact. The children who will be victims rather than beneficiaries cannot be predicted.’"

"The [Congressional] Record goes on to justify mass immunization practices by comparing children to soldiers who must at times sacrifice themselves for their country: ‘As a nation we require that all children be immunized so that most children will be healthy. Today, the subcommittee will begin to consider what society owes to those who are hurt, to children injured in the line of public health.’"

"The International Association of Biological Standards is the association which sets the expected risk/benefit ratio that should allow vaccines to be used. What is this standard? How beneficial must it be relative to a risk to be able to be used? What the International Association of Biological Standards says about vaccines in its manual is this: ‘A relatively small number of damaged persons, due to inoculation, is first considered the lesser of two evils.’ So, we have an admission of damaged persons, who Waxman says have been injured in the line of public health, and about who the International Association of Biological Standards says: ‘The subject affected by an inoculation has, without doubt, made a special sacrifice in the interest of the general public.’"

As Dr. Black says, "If I am a parent whose child has been injured in the line of public health, my individual child may be dead. As far as the government is concerned, that’s just a risk I have to take. My child must be willing to die in the service of the general public." Thus Dr. Black brings up a troubling assumption behind vaccination programs—that it is right for a few children to be sacrificed for the good of many. The questions that of course arise are: What if a child’s parents don’t agree with that? What if a child doesn’t? We’re looking at a philosophical assumption that has never been dealt with in an open way in this country, and maybe it’s time for some public discussion of the issue."

Another troubling area of concern is this: If vaccines are as safe and effective as medical science says, then why are doctors not lining up for the shots? After all, doctors are exposed to infected patients every day. In fact, physicians belong to a high-risk category and are urged to accept vaccinations because of their continued exposure to infectious disease.

Despite these recommendations, it is well known that many doctors refuse to vaccinate themselves and their families.^, In the Feb. 20, 1981, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, an article entitled "Rubella Vaccine in Susceptible Hospital Employees, Poor Physician Participation" reports that the lowest vaccination rate among medical personnel for the German measles vaccine occurred among obstetrician/gynecologists and the next lowest rate occurred among pediatricians. The authors conclude, "The fear of unforeseen vaccination reactions was the main reason for the low uptake rate of physicians to be vaccinated."

Dr. Robert Mendelson wrote a report about a Los Angeles physician who refused to vaccinate his own 7-month-old baby. According to Mendelson, this doctor stated, "I’m worried about what happens when the vaccine virus may not only offer little protection against measles but may also stay around in the body, working in a way that we don’t know much about." Yet the doctor was still vaccinating his patients and justifying his actions: "As a parent I have the luxury of making a choice for my child. As a physician, legally and professionally, I have to accept the recommendations of the profession, which is what we also had to do with the whole swine flu business."

In the British Medical Journal, an article entitled, "Attitudes of General Practitioners Towards their Vaccination against Hepatitis B" tells us that of 598 doctors questioned about hepatitis B vaccine, 86 percent believe that all general practitioners should be vaccinated against hepatitis B. Yet 309 of those practitioners had not been vaccinated themselves. This less than enthusiastic response by physicians is further noted in another British Medical Journal article on hepatitis B vaccination and surgeons: "Infection with hepatitis B virus is a serious hazard for health workers. Surgeons are particularly at risk with potentially devastating consequences to their well-being and a major threat to their livelihood if they become carriers." However, either surgeons do not take this threat seriously or realize that vaccinations do not offer protection, because the article goes on to say, "Despite good evidence of an increased risk of infection, a high percentage of surgeons in this study had not been immunized. Clearly, there is a failure by all surgeons to protect themselves and to insist that junior staff are protected."

It would seem that there are many doctors who are in agreement with the words of Dr. James Sheenan, who says, "The only wholly safe vaccine is a vaccine that is never used."

Vaccinations are Based on Unsound Principles

Vaccines are suspensions of infectious agents used to artificially induce immunity against specific diseases. The aim of vaccination is to mimic the process of naturally occurring infection through artificial means. Theoretically, vaccines produce a mild to moderate episode of infection in the body with only temporary and slight side effects. But in reality, they may be causing diseases rather than preventing them. According to Jamie Murphy, "Vaccines produce disease or infection in an otherwise healthy person... And so, in order to allegedly produce something good, one has to do something bad to the human body, that is, induce an infection or a disease in an otherwise healthy person that may or may not have ever happened."

Murphy continues: "You have a situation in which everyone is being given a disease with no control over that disease, because once you inject a vaccine into a person’s body, whether it contains bacteria or viruses or split viruses or whatever--you have no control over the outcome. It’s like dumping toxic wastes into a river and saying, ‘If we just put a little bit in, it won’t pollute the river. It will be just enough to do what we want it to do.’ Of course, what they want the vaccination to do is initiate the building up of our immune defenses, just like a regular infection would do. The problem is that the medical profession and science do not know, and have never known, what the infecting dose of an infection really is. It’s not something that can be measured. So they’re really guessing at the amount of antigen and other supplementary chemicals that they put in the vaccine."

"Vaccines are portrayed as being indispensable and somehow better at disease protection than what our innate biological defenses and nutritional resources have accomplished for thousands of years. I think it’s the height of arrogance for the medical profession to think that they have duplicated a biological process that has taken care of people since the beginning of time. People can deal with infectious diseases without vaccines. Before the introduction of the measles and mumps vaccines, children got measles and they got mumps, and in the great majority of cases those diseases were benign."

"The most important point I want to make is that there’s no logical reason for having a vaccine when these [natually occuring] infectious agents...can stimulate the immune system to take care of that disease by itself. We don’t need anything artificial to do that for us."

Another argument against vaccines is that they are suppressive, rather than curative, causing the vital force of the body to shift its emphasis either to some other disease or to a deeper disease. Symptoms can be suppressed for the moment, notes homeopathic veterinarian Dr. Charles Loops, but down the road some type of chronic disease is going to develop: "If you treat irritable bowel syndrome, for instance, with cortisone and antibiotics, you can drive the disease to a state where ten years down the road you’ll be dealing with colon cancer. And we have equivalents in animal disease. The most important thing is to treat disease, any type of disease, in a manner that enhances the body, so that it can heal itself, and that means using herbal, homeopathic, or some other type of stimulatory medicine, rather than suppressive medicine."

Walene James, author of Immunizations: The Reality Beyond the Myth, adds that the full inflammatory response is necessary to create real immunity, and reports that in The Lancet on June 5, 1985, there was an article about measles virus infection relating to a variety of diseases in adult life. Researchers in Denmark, the article explained, examined the histories of people claiming not to have had measles in childhood, yet who had blood antibody evidence of such infection. The researchers found that some of these people had been injected in childhood with the measles vaccine after exposure to the infection. This may have suppressed the disease which was at the time developing in their bodies. A high proportion of these individuals were found in adult life to have developed immunoreactive diseases, such as sebaceous skin diseases, tumors, and degenerative diseases of bone and cartilage. The conditions included cancer, MS, lupus, and chondromalacia, which is softening of the cartilage.

James quotes Dr. Richard Moskowitz, past president of the National Institute of Homeopathy, and a cum laude graduate of Harvard and New York Medical School, as stating, "‘Vaccines trick the body so that it will no longer initiate a generalized inflammatory response. They thereby accomplish what the entire immune system seems to have evolved to prevent. They place the virus directly into the blood and give it access to the major immune organs and tissues without any obvious way of getting rid of it. These attenuated viruses and virus elements persist in the blood for a long time, perhaps permanently. This, in turn, implies a systematic weakening of the ability to mount an effective response, not only to childhood diseases but to other acute infections as well.’"

James explains that increased antibody production may not be the most important aspect of the immune process:

"Vaccines isolate antibody function, and allow it to substitute for the entire immune response. Scientific evidence questioning the role of antibodies in disease protection can be found in research performed by Dr. Alec Burton, published in a study by the British Medical Council in May 1950. The study investigates the relationship between the incidence of diphtheria and the presence of antibodies. Since diphtheria was epidemic at, or just prior to, the time of the study, the researchers had a large number of cases to investigate. The purpose of the research was to determine the existence or nonexistence of antibodies in people who developed diphtheria and in those who did not. It looked at patients and people who were in close proximity to patients, such as physicians, nurses in hospitals, family, and friends. The conclusion was that there was no relation whatsoever between antibody count and incidence of disease. The researchers found people who were highly resistant with extremely low antibody counts, and people who developed the disease who had high antibody counts. Dr. Burton also discovered that children born with a-gamma globulinemia (an inability to produce antibodies) develop and recover from measles and other infectious or contagious disease almost as spontaneously as other children."

Further, Jamie Murphy insists that introducing antigens directly into the bloodstream can prove dangerous. "When a child gets a naturally occurring infection, like measles, which is not a serious disease, the body reacts to that in a very set way. The germs go in a certain part of the body through the throat and into the different immune organs, and the body combats the disease in its own natural way. There are all sorts of immune reactions that occur. Inflammatory response reactions, macrophages, and different kinds of white blood cells are used to combat the virus. You also cough and sneeze and get rid of the virus that way.

"When you inject a vaccine into the body, you’re actually performing an unnatural act because you are injecting directly into the blood system. That is not the natural port of entry for that virus. In fact, the whole immune system in our body is geared to prevent that from happening. What we’re doing is giving the virus or the bacteria carte blanche entry into our bloodstream, which is the last place you want it to be. This increases the chance for disease because viral material from the vaccine stays in the cells, and is not completely defeated by the body’s own defenses. You overload the body."

Additionally, vaccines are less efficient than the body’s own immunization processes. Murphy observes that vaccines, unlike childhood diseases, do not produce permanent immunity. "The medical profession does not know how long vaccine immunity lasts because it is artificial immunity. If you get measles naturally, in 99 percent of the cases, you have lifelong immunity. If you have German measles you will have lifelong immunity. The chances of getting measles twice, German measles twice, or even whooping cough twice are so remote, it’s unbelievable. However, if you get a measles vaccine or a DPT vaccine, it does not mean that the vaccine will prevent you from getting the disease. Nobody knows how good vaccine prevention is. But I can tell you that the recent figures I’ve seen coming out of government and medical journals, which I read constantly, is that at least 40-65 percent of all inoculated disease that occurs in this country (measles, DPT, or tetanus) occurs in vaccinated individuals, and that to me says that the vaccine isn’t working."

Walene James notes that people sometimes confuse the principle of vaccination with the principle of homeopathy, when they are very different. One of the differences she cites is that mass compulsory vaccinations are based upon the mistaken notion that one size fits all. Another difference is the amount of toxins given. "The homeopathic dose is minute. It is so small, in fact, that there is only an energy field left. Through a method called potentization, you are only left with a pattern; there is no trace of the substance. This is not true of an allopathic vaccine. Also, when you are taking homeopathic treatments, you are taking just one treatment, not a whole lot of them. Further, in classical homeopathy, you are never supposed to violate the body by piercing the skin. Medicine must be oral.

"Most important, the homeopathic remedy is holistic. It addresses the uniqueness of the patient as well as his wholeness. The patient is seen as a mental and spiritual being as well as a physical organism. In contrast, vaccines are herd treatments....You are regarded by orthodox medicine as part of a herd, like cattle, sheep or buffalo."

In his widely circulated critique of vaccines, "Vaccination: Dispelling the Myths," Alan Phillips writes, "The clinical evidence for vaccination is their ability to stimulate antibody production in the recipient, a fact which is not disputed. What is not clear, however, is whether or not such antibody production constitutes immunity. For example, a-gamma globulinemic children are incapable of producing antibodies, yet they recover from infectious diseases almost as quickly as other children....Natural immunization is a complex phenomenon involving many organs and systems; it cannot be fully replicated by the artificial stimulation of antibody production. Research also indicates that vaccination commits immune cells to the specific antigens involved in the vaccine, rendering them incapable of reacting to other infections. Our immunological reserve may thus actually be reduced, causing a generally lowered resistance."

Echoing the thinking of Walene James, Phillips adds: "Another component of immunization theory is ‘herd immunity,’ which states that when enough people in a community are immunized, all are protected. There are many documented instances showing just the opposite--fully vaccinated populations do contract diseases; with measles, this actually seems to be the direct result of high vaccination rates. A Minnesota state epidemiologist concluded that the HiB vaccine increases the risk of illness when a study revealed that vaccinated children were five times more likely to contract meningitis than unvaccinated children."^,

Writing in Nexus, Phillips makes the point that immunization practice assumes that all children, regardless of age and size, are virtually the same. "An 8-pound 2-month-old receives the same dosage as a 40-pound five-year-old," Phillips points out. "Infants with immature, undeveloped immune systems may receive five or more times the dosage (relative to body weight) as older children." What’s more, random testing has revealed that the number of ‘units’ within doses has been found to range up to three times what the label indicates, with quality control tolerating a rather large margin of error. In fact, Phillips reports that "‘Hot Lots’--vaccine lots with disproportionately high death and disability rates--have been identified repeatedly by the NVIC, but the FDA refuses to intervene to prevent further unnecessary injury and deaths. In fact, they have never recalled a vaccine lot due to adverse reactions. Some would call this infanticide."

Questionable Science

Many scientific studies tell us that vaccines are safe and effective when this is not necessarily the case.^, Doctors and vaccine proponents often quote studies done solely on antibody production in the blood, not taking into account clinical experiences.^, In her research, Cynthia Cournoyer discusses some of the studies that started with the hypothesis that vaccines are safe and effective.

"They never consider the opposite possibility, that vaccines are harmful and ineffective," Cournoyer says. "When vaccine failures and reactions occur, they are explained away. Researchers conclude that the doses were wrong, the control group was wrong, or that something else was wrong. Using common sense, I would conclude that perhaps something is wrong with the vaccines being studied."

Cournoyer uses this example to show just how biased vaccine studies can be: "A 1988 Lancet article reports a study in which a group of children were given the cellular pertussis vaccine. Those who had a reaction to the first dose were removed from the research population. Only nonreacting children were kept and given a second dose. Researchers were not interested in studying the children who reacted to the first dose. This allowed them to say that the new vaccine was safe and effective. In reality, however, children are receiving first doses all the time."

Dr. Dean Black believes that scientists know that there are risks and benefits to vaccination but assume that the good effects outweigh the bad. However, they do not have proof to back up their claims, a point brought out in Congressional hearings. Black states, "Congressman Waxman addressed this issue directly at the Congressional hearings on vaccine safety when he asked Dr. Martin H. Smith, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, ‘In your opinion, Dr. Smith, is there an accurate reporting of reactions to vaccines?’ Smith said, ‘Not at the present time.’ [Congressman Waxman questioned] Dr. Edward N. Brandt, assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, ‘I have been hearing that physicians don’t even know a reaction when one occurs. They assume that it may be from some other cause. Is that a fair statement?’ Brandt replied, ‘Certainly there have been a number of people who have pointed that out.’ Congressman Waxman then asked Brandt, ‘How do you prove that a vaccine was, in fact, the cause of an illness or disability?’ To this, Brandt said, ‘It may very well be impossible to do that in individual cases.’ And of course," Black points out, "there are only individual cases. So, we have in the Congressional Record a clear statement that says we do not know the risk of harm."

Black continues by asking, "How about the benefit? The benefit means children would have become injured or would have died without the vaccine. The question is, how do we know who would have died without the vaccine? How do we know how many would have been harmed without it? The answer is, we don’t know. It’s purely hypothetical."

Black then brings up an issue that needs more attention—what if we stopped compulsory vaccination? "By looking at what happens in countries where vaccinations are no longer required," he says, "we can get an idea of what would truly happen if we were to cease demanding compulsory immunization in America. In 1975, Germany stopped requiring pertussis vaccinations, and the number of children vaccinated promptly began to drop. Today, it has dropped to well below 10 percent. What has happened in Germany from pertussis over that period of time? The mortality rate has continued to decrease. That would likewise be our experience here."

The Natural Evolution of Disease

Immunization supposedly puts an end to disease. We attribute the decline in polio to the polio vaccine, the "disappearance" of smallpox to the smallpox vaccine, and so forth. ^{, , , , ,} The media tell us that science is working on an AIDS vaccine, and we trust that this will fully end the affliction.

But are vaccinations the magic bullets we believe them to be? Dr. Coulter concludes otherwise. Regarding infectious diseases of the past, he states, "The incidence of all of these infectious diseases was dropping very rapidly, starting in the 1930s. After World War II, the incidence continued to drop as living conditions improved. Clean water, central heating, the ability to bring oranges from Florida to the north in February so the children could get vitamin C--these are the factors that really affected people’s tendencies to come down with infectious diseases much more than vaccines. The vaccines might have added a little bit to that downward curve, but the curve was going down all the time anyway."

Dr. Coulter’s words are supported by the Australian Nurses Journal: "A careful study of the decline in disease will show that up to 90 percent of the so-called ‘killer diseases’ had all but disappeared when we introduced immunization on a large scale during the late thirties and early forties." A similar statement is made by the Medical Journal of Australia: "The decline of tetanus as a disease began before the introduction of tetanus toxoid to the general population. The reasons for this decline are the same for the decline in all other infectious diseases: improved hygiene, improved sanitation, better nutrition, healthier living conditions, etc."

Alan Phillips elaborates on this theme:

"We just assume that vaccinations are responsible for disease decline, which is not the case. For if you check the statistics, you will find that the vast majority of disease decline proceeded vaccines. In the case of measles, for example, there was a 97-percent decline preceding vaccination; in the case of pertussis, 79 percent. When you look at the graph of the decline in death rate over the course of the century, you see that the rate of decline, post-immunization, was virtually the same as the decline pre-immunization, suggesting that it’s difficult to tell whether or not the vaccine had any effect on an already well-established decline in disease deaths." ^,

The statistics on the abatement of childhood diseases before the period of mass immunization are not well-publicized, because they could tarnish the shining image of the vaccine as savior. According to Jamie Murphy, "From 1911 to 1935, the four leading causes of death among those aged 1 to 14, covered by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company policies, were (1) diphtheria, (2) measles, (3) scarlet fever, (4) and whooping cough. The standardized death rate among children ages 1 to 14 from the leading childhood diseases declined from 145 per 100,000 living in 1911, to 28 per 100,000 in 1935, a decrease of 81 percent. By 1945, the annual death rate from the four leading communicable diseases of childhood had declined to 7 per 100,000. Thus, the combined death rate of diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, and whooping cough declined 95 percent among children ages 1 to 14 from 1911 to 1945, before the mass immunization programs started in the United States."

Phillips also attacks the notion that vaccines are responsible for the dramatic reduction in infectious disease during this and past centuries. "According to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, childhood diseases decreased 90 percent between 1850 and 1940, paralleling improved sanitation and hygienic practices, well before mandatory vaccination programs. Infectious disease deaths in the U.S. and England declined steadily by an average of about 80 percent during this century (measles mortality declined over 97 percent) prior to vaccinations. In Great Britain, the polio epidemics peaked in 1950, and had declined 82 percent by the time the vaccine was introduced there in 1956. Thus, at best, vaccinations can be credited with only a small percentage of the overall decline in disease-related deaths this century. Yet even this small portion is questionable, as the rate of decline remained virtually the same after vaccines were introduced."

"Furthermore," Phillips points out, "European countries that refused immunization for smallpox and polio saw the epidemics end along with those countries that mandated it. In fact, both smallpox and polio immunization campaigns were followed initially by significant disease incidence increases; during smallpox vaccination campaigns, other infectious diseases continued their declines in the absence of vaccines. In England and Wales, smallpox disease and vaccination rates eventually declined simultaneously over a period of several decades. It is thus impossible to say whether or not vaccinations contributed to the continuing decline in disease death rates, or if the same forces which brought about the initial declines--improved sanitation, hygiene, improvements in diet, natural disease cycles--were simply unaffected by the vaccination programs."

"Underscoring this conclusion was a recent World Health Organization report which found that the disease and mortality rates in the Third World countries have no direct correlation with immunization procedures or medical treatment, but are closely related to the standard of hygiene and diet. Credit given to vaccinations for our current disease incidence has simply been grossly exaggerated, if not outright misplaced."

Vaccine Propaganda

Consider the case of a recent Miss America. As described in a newsletter put out by The National Vaccine Information Center, "Before the...pageant that crowned her the new Miss America, Healther Whitestone gave an interview to the Birmingham News in her home state and candidly talked about how she became deaf after a serious reaction to a DPT shot at 18 months old. Heather’s Mom also talked to The Star and other broadcast and print media about how Heather reacted to her DPT shot with a high fever and then came down with an infection that brought her young daughter close to death.

"But within hours after the Miss America pageant, a horrified medical establishment moved quickly to publicly dispute any connection between Heather’s deafness and the DPT vaccine and instead blamed her deafness on a bacterial infection for which there now is a vaccine--Haemophilus influenzae B (HiB). The American Academy of Pediatrics searched out and found a doctor who had been part of the Alabama medical group that treated Heather as a toddler. The doctor publicly insisted there was no connection between Heather’s deafness and the DPT shot and that Heather had suffered a severe case of HiB disease that coincidentally occurred around the time of her DPT shot."

The newsletter goes on to discuss the phenomenon of recently vaccinated children getting HiB. "Analysis of individual reports made to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System during the past two years reveals a significant number of four- to eight-year-old children coming down with HiB disease within one to four weeks of vaccination. These reports are reminiscent of the reports of invasive bacterial infection, specifically Haemophilus inluenzae B infection, within one to four weeks of acellular pertussis vaccination in the Swedish vaccine trials in the 1980s. There has long been speculation that vaccination may temporarily suppress the immune system and leave recently vaccinated individuals vulnerable to infections, from otitis media to more severe infection such as Hib.

"Whether or not Heather Whitestone’s deafness is connected to the DPT vaccine, there can be no doubt that the American medical establishment went to extraordinary lengths to publicly challenge Heather and her mother in order to avoid having to acknowledge DPT vaccine risks. At a National Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting held several weeks after she was crowned, one doctor suggested that the ‘public relations problem’ surrounding the new Miss America could be fixed by persuading Heather to become a ‘poster child’ to promote vaccination for the government."

To combat public relations nightmares such as these, government scientists have turned to "behavioral research" to ensure that vaccines are looked upon favorably. A National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) document reads:

"Rates of vaccine acceptance are unlikely to change substantially as a result of the use of simple incentives or educational brochures. The behavioral research agenda that must be developed to improve acceptance is based on identifying factors that motivate or inhibit acceptance. They include characteristics of (a) the intended recipient, (b) the guardian, in the case of children, (c) the health care provider, and (d) the setting in which the vaccine is delivered. Relevant findings must then be translated into key elements of intervention strategies that are rigorously evaluated. Incomplete or inappropriately timed vaccination can lead to a resurgence of disease, as occurred in the United States with measles outbreaks between 1988 and 1991. Individuals who accept the first dose of vaccine must be followed over the course of immunization to identify the determinants of compliance and noncompliance with the entire vaccine regimen. These findings should contribute to pilot tests of interventions to increase full immunization. Results from these types of studies are also likely to delineate strategies to increase vaccine acceptance and to increase compliance with larger scale immunization programs."

The same report continues, "Clearly, improving immunization programs requires rigorous research on fundamental cognitive, perceptual, and cultural processes that affect health related decisions. Although it is important to improve the acceptance of licensed vaccine products, it is also critical to anticipate the availability of new products and pave the way for their introduction. …Behavioral research also should be conducted during clinical trials of products under development to improve the likelihood of their use in full-scale immunization programs."

Toxic Vaccine Ingredients and Manufacturing Processes

What one will not find coming out of the NIAID is much discussion of what vaccines actually are, or, moreover, what’s in them. Walene James describes the contents of vaccines, and urges parents to think about what effects these ingredients could have on their children’s health.

"There are three categories of ingredients. The first are cultured bacteria and viruses. All viruses, even attenuated (so-called killed) viruses contain RNA and DNA. RNA and DNA shed, and this can be picked up by the cellular organisms in which they are immersed. This process of shedding genetic material by the cells of one species and its subsequent absorption into another species is known as transession. Cells in which viral RNA have integrated into the DNA of the animal cells are known as pro-viruses or molecular intermediates. These infected cells can lie dormant in tissues throughout the body, and be activated at a later stage, triggering auto-immune phenomena, such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, lupus, allergies, and rheumatoid arthritis. Transession explains auto-immune phenomena, why the immune system cannot distinguish between foreign invaders and its own tissues, and why it begins to destroy itself.

"The second ingredient in vaccinations is the medium in which they are cultivated. This can include rabbit brain tissue, dog kidney tissue, monkey kidney tissue, chicken or duck egg protein, chick embryo, calf serum, pig or horse blood, and cowpox pus. These foreign proteins are injected directly into the bloodstream. They are very toxic since they do not get filtered through the digestive process or pass through the liver."

"These proteins are foreign to the body, and are in a state of decomposition. They are composed of animal cells, and therefore contain animal genetic material. It is possible for the genes in these cells to be picked up by the live, attenuated viruses used in vaccines. These viruses then implant a foreign alien genetic material from animal tissue cultures into the human genetic system. Undigested proteins in the blood are one of the causes of allergies....These undigested proteins can attack the myelin sheath that protects the nerves, and result in neurological problems."

James goes on to comment on the last category of vaccine ingredients, which are stabilizers, neutralizers, carrying agents, and preservatives. "Many people feed their children healthy foods. They would never think of giving their children formaldehyde, mercury, or aluminum phosphate to eat. Formaldehyde, for instance, is used to embalm corpses, and is a known carcinogen. These are preservatives and carrying agents that are injected directly into the bloodstream without buffering by the digestive process, or censoring by the liver."

Using the smallpox vaccine as an example, James then describes how vaccines are manufactured.

"Although [smallpox] is no longer a required vaccination, it is still being used for research on AIDS and the new genetically engineered recombinant vaccines. Mendelson’s newsletter describes the following process: ‘A young calf has his belly shaved. Many slashes are made in the skin. A prior batch of smallpox vaccine is dropped into the slashes and allowed to fester over a period of days. During this period of time, the calf stands in a head stall so that he can’t lick his belly. The calf is led out of the stock to a table where he is strapped down. His belly scabs and pus are scraped off and ground into a powder. The powder is the next batch of smallpox vaccine. Besides dried pus and scabs in the smallpox vaccine, incidental viruses, which the calf was carrying, can be contained in these scabs and pus.’"

More specifically, Barbara Loe Fisher outlines the production processes of the most common vaccines in her book, The Consumer’s Guide to Childhood Vaccines, as follows:

"DPT VACCINE: DPT vaccine is an inactivated bacterial vaccine. To produce the pertussis vaccine portion of the DPT vaccine, whole B pertussis bacteria are grown... harvested, inactivated through heat and chemical treatments and suspended in a solution containing such chemicals as potassium phosphate, sodium chloride and thimerosal (mercury), which is used as a preservative. Aluminum is added as an adjuvant. The pertussis vaccine is then combined with the DT vaccine."

"DT VACCINE: The diphtheria and tetanus toxoid are detoxified by use of formaldehyde and diluted with a solution containing such chemicals as sodium phosphate, glycine and thimerosal as a preservative. Aluminum is added as an adjuvant."

"DTaP VACCINE: Unlike the DPT vaccine, the purified acellular or DTaP vaccine does not contain the whole B pertussis bacteria. DTaP vaccine is made by separating out and removing many of the toxins in the whole B pertussis bacteria and only using a few components of the bacteria in the vaccine. These remaining components, including pertussis toxin, may be detoxified by using formaldehyde. Thimerosal is usually added as a preservative and aluminum added as an adjuvant. The acellular pertussis vaccine is then combined with the DT vaccine."

"MMR VACCINE: MMR vaccine used in the U.S. is a live virus vaccine. It contains (1) a weakened (partially inactivated) live measles virus...grown in cell cultures of chick embryo; (2) a weakened live strain of mumps virus grown in cell cultures of chick embryo; and (3) a weakened Wistar RA 27/3 strain of live attenuated rubella virus grown in human diploid cell (W-38) culture originating from the tissues of a fetus aborted in 1964 after the mother was infected with rubella. There is no preservative. MMR vaccine contains the antibiotic neomycin. Sorbitol and hydrolyzed gelatin are added as stabilizers. The live virus measles vaccine, mumps vaccine and rubella vaccine are also available as single vaccines but most often doctors give these vaccines as the MMR vaccine unless single antigens are specifically requested."

LIVE ORAL POLIO VACCINE (OPV): The live oral polio vaccine in the U.S. is a mixture of three types of attenuated (weakened or partially inactivated) polioviruses which have been grown in African green monkey kidney cell culture. The cells are then grown in a medium consisting of a salt solution containing amino acids, antibiotics and calf serum. After cell growth, the medium is removed and replaced with a medium containing the virus but no calf serum. The vaccine contains sorbitol and the antibiotics streptomycin and neomycin."

INACTIVATED POLIO VACCINE (IPV): The inactivated poliovirus vaccine used in the U.S. is a sterile suspension of three types of poliovirus grown in cultures of VERO cells, a continuous line of African green monkey kidney cells. The viruses are concentrated, purified and made noninfectious by inactivation with formaldehyde. IPV vaccine contains phenoxyethanol and formaldehyde as preservatives and the antibiotics neomycin, streptomycin and polymyxin. An IPV vaccine using human diploid cell cultures, rather than monkey kidney cell cultures, is used in some other countries."

"HAEMOPHILUS INFLUENZA B VACCINE (HIB): Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine used in the U.S today is a polysaccharide conjugate vaccine. It does not contain all the HiB bacteria, just the organism’s capsular polysaccharide. The vaccine is a sterile solution of a conjugate of oligosaccharides of the capsular antigen of Haemophilus influenza type B and diphtheria protein dissolved in sodium chloride."

"HEPATITIS B VACCINE: The first hepatitis B virus vaccines developed in the 1970s were made using virus isolated from the blood of human chronic hepatitis B carriers. A plasma-derived hepatitis B vaccine was licensed by the U.S. in 1981 and used in high-risk populations in the 1980s until a genetically engineered, recombinant hepatitis B vaccine was developed. Today, hepatitis B recombinant vaccine used in the U.S. is derived from hepatitis B surface antigens produced in yeast cells. A portion of the hepatitis B virus gene is cloned into the yeast (a common baker’s yeast) and the vaccine is produced from cultures of this recombinant yeast strain. The vaccine is treated with formaldehyde and contains 95 percent hepatitis B virus surface antigen, 4 percent yeast protein, aluminum hydroxide and thimerosal added as a preservative."

"VARICELLA ZOSTER (CHICKENPOX) VACCINE: Chickenpox vaccine is made from the Oka/Merck strain of live attenuated (weakened) varicella virus. The virus was initially obtained from a child with natural varicella, introduced into human embryonic lung cell cultures, adapted to and propagated in embryonic guinea pig cell cultures and finally propagated in human diploid cell cultures. The vaccine contains sucrose, phosphate, glutamate and processed gelatin as stabilizers."

Noting the fact that vaccines include a host of undisputed toxins, such as thimerosal, aluminum phosphate, and formaldehyde, Alan Phillps reminds us that many of the ill effects caused by vaccines existed at nowhere near today’s levels 30 years ago. He cites autism, ADD, hyperactivity, dyslexia, and a host of allergies as examples. In his book What Every Parent Should Know About Childhood Immunization, Jamie Murphy seconds the views of Phillips, and pulls even fewer punches.

"What sane person would consider using a hazardous waste, carcinogenic in rats, used in the manufacture of inks, dyes, explosives, wrinkle-proof fabrics, home insulation, and as a major constituent of embalming fluid, and inject it into the delicate body of an infant? What could formaldehyde, aluminum, phenol, mercury, or any number of other deadly chemical substances used in vaccines possibly have to do with preventing disease in children? The fact that they are needed at all in the vaccine formula argues that the product is toxic, unstable and unreliable with or without their presence."

The Threat of Thimerosal. On July 9, 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a statement urging removal of the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal from vaccines. The reason behind this strong recommendation is a growing concern about the risk of exposing the developing brains of infants to mercury. While the precaution is certainly welcomed, we should ask why such a dangerous, known neurotoxin was allowed into vaccines in the first place. Mercury exposure has been associated with nerve cell degeneration, adverse behavioral effects and impaired brain development. It has also been linked to degenerative chronic conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. The developing fetal nervous system is the most sensitive to its toxic effects, and prenatal exposure to high doses of mercury has been shown to cause mental retardation and cerebral palsy.

And yet the CDC is currently recommending the mercury-containing influenza vaccine to all pregnant women (see section on influenza vaccine). Furthermore, until vaccine manufacturers comply with the AAP recommendations, vaccines containing thimerosal will still be given to infants, children, and adults. Other mercury-containing vaccines include the hepatitis B, pertussis, diptheria, tetanus, and Haemophilus influenzae B vaccines.

The AAP acknowledged that with the growing number of vaccines mandated for children the cumulative level of mercury exceeds that deemed safe by current guidelines. In addition, the hepatitis B, hepatitis A, polio, pertussis, diptheria, and tetanus vaccines contain formaldehyde--a highly carcinogenic material used to embalm corpses--while the hepatitis B, hepatitis A, pertussis, diptheria, and tetanus vaccines contain aluminum.

Can we be surprised that a growing number of children are manifesting cognitive disturbances such as autism and attention deficit disorder?

Vaccine Failures

A look back through history reveals very different stories about vaccines from the ones told today. In fact, medical literature documents increases in the conditions they are designed to prevent, as well as side effects of all degrees of seriousness, including death. Thus the statement that we hear so often from the medical establishment, that vaccines are safe and effective, is a gross distortion. ^{, , , , , , , , ,}

According to Phillips, "The medical literature has a surprising number of studies documenting vaccine failure. Measles, mumps, smallpox, polio, and HiB outbreaks have all occurred in vaccinated populations. In 1989, the CDC reported: Among school-aged children, [measles] outbreaks have occurred in schools with vaccination levels of greater than 98 percent. They have occurred in all parts of the country, including areas that had not reported measles for years. The CDC even reported a measles outbreak in a documented 100-percent-vaccinated population. A study examining this phenomenon concluded, ‘The apparent paradox is that as measles immunization rates rise to high levels in a population, measles becomes a disease of immunized persons.’...These studies suggest that the goal of complete immunization is actually counterproductive, a notion underscored by instances in which epidemics followed complete immunization of entire countries. Japan experienced yearly increases in smallpox following the introduction of compulsory vaccines in 1872. By 1892, there were 29,979 deaths, and all had been vaccinated. Early in this century, the Philippines experienced their worst smallpox epidemic ever after 8 million people received 24.5 million vaccine doses; the death rate quadrupled as a result. In 1989, the country of Oman experienced a widespread polio outbreak six months after achieving complete vaccination. In the U.S. in 1986, 90 percent of 1300 pertussis cases in Kansas were ‘adequately vaccinated.’ Seventy-two percent of pertussis cases in the 1993 Chicago outbreak were fully up to date with their vaccinations."^{, , , , , , , , , ,}

In addition to vaccines not doing what they were meant to do, another type of vaccine failure is the side effect. Vaccine manufacturers do try to minimize side effect occurrence by listing, in the product literature, the conditions that contraindicate a vaccine’s use. But there are a lot of contraindications, and doctors aren’t always aware of them. Scheibner has documented just a few of the specific contraindications listed by vaccine manufacturers in their product inserts:

"For DPT Vaccine: ‘Hypersensitivity to any component of the vaccine, including thimerosal, a mercury derivative, is a contraindication’… ‘Routine immunization [with DPT] should be deferred during an outbreak of poliomyelitis…’ ‘The occurrence of any type of neurological symptoms or signs, including one or more convulsions (seizures) following administration of this product is a contraindication to further use. Use of this product is also contraindicated if the child has a personal history of seizures. The presence of any evolving or changing disorder affecting the central nervous system is a contraindication to administration of DTP regardless of whether the suspected neurological disorder is associated with occurrence of seizure activity of any type.’"

"For DTaP Vaccine: ‘Influenza virus vaccine should not be given within three days of the administration of [the vaccine].’"

"For MMR Vaccine: ‘Due caution should be employed in administration of MMR to persons with a history of cerebral injury, individual or family histories of convulsions, or any other condition in which stress due to fever should be avoided.’

"For OPV Vaccine: ‘Immunization should be deferred during the course of any febrile illness or acute infection. In addition, immunization should be deferred in the presence of persistent vomiting or diarrhea, or suspected gastroenteritis infection’… ‘Prior to administration of the vaccine, the attending physician should warn or specifically direct personnel acting under their authority to convey the warnings to the...parent, guardian or other responsible person of the possibility of vaccine-associated paralysis, particularly to the recipient, family members and other close personal contact… The responsible adult should be informed of precautions to be taken such as hand-washing after diaper changes.’"

"For HiB Vaccine: ‘Hypersensitivity to any component of the vaccine, including diphtheria toxoid or thimerosal in the multidose presentation, is a contraindication.’"

"For Varicella Zoster Vaccine: ‘Pregnancy should be avoided for three months following vaccination.’… ‘Vaccine recipients should avoid use of salicylates [aspirin] for 6 weeks after vaccination with [the vaccine]…’"

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ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.